Thoma Bravo Exec on New ConnectWise CEO: “He’s an Innovator”

Mike Hoffman says Manny Rivelo brings security experience and a passion for technology to the company. Plus: HP on AI PCs and personal fulfillment and ThreatLocker on AI’s limits as a security tool.

I did what was probably my last one-to-one interview with Jason Magee, who until a few days ago was the second CEO in ConnectWise history, back in February at the company’s still shiny new downtown Tampa headquarters. He answered my questions for a half hour, stuck around a little longer to chat, and then walked me up the hallway briefly to give me a peek at his brand-new office.

Everything about the interaction was classic Jason Magee, beginning with how generously he shared his time and extending to how…chill he was the whole time. Magee, in fact, has always struck me as remarkably at ease for someone running one of the biggest names in managed services.

Theoretically, he’ll be even more relaxed, depending on what he decides to do next, now that he’s stepped down as CEO after a five-year run in which he grew revenue over 300% and increased profitability by 500%.

Magee, together with the rest of ConnectWise’s board, played an active role in choosing his successor, Manny Rivelo, formerly CEO of Forcepoint. Ultimately, though, the most important say in the matter belonged to Thoma Bravo, the private equity firm that has owned ConnectWise since 2019. To get its perspective on the succession process and what ConnectWise partners can expect from Rivelo, I spoke this week with Mike Hoffman (pictured above), a partner at Thoma Bravo and ConnectWise board member who regular readers may recall meeting in May. Here are his lightly edited thoughts on a few key topics:

On why the board chose Rivelo to be ConnectWise’s next CEO

“Just like with any CEO search for us at Thoma Bravo, given that we are software-centric investors, we were looking for people with deep technology leadership and operational experience at scale. Specifically for ConnectWise, we wanted people who had a really experienced track record with cybersecurity. Manny has that. We also wanted somebody who was really just a passionate lover of technology. And Manny at his core is exactly that … He’s somebody who at his heart is a technologist. And I think it's really important for us to have somebody who’s just genuinely passionate about solving really sophisticated, hard issues in IT and security … So all those things kind of lined up for us.

“And the last point is he’s operated some really good businesses at scale … We’ve been really impressed about what he’s been able to do in organizations and in particular at Forcepoint. He had a really, really successful outcome with Forcepoint. And so I think all that kind of advanced our impression of Manny and wanting to find a way to work with him in our portfolio, and obviously ConnectWise became that opportunity.”

On why security experience was such an important consideration

“Security [experience] is one of, as opposed to number one, of the attributes we were looking for, but security is a very large portion obviously of the value proposition and the products that we sell at ConnectWise. And it’s the fastest growing segment because ConnectWise is a really, really big leader in the MSP and MSSP security industry. So I think for those reasons, coupled with how complex and quickly moving the security markets are, having somebody who is truly a best in class security expert was a really important criteria in helping us identify the next CEO of ConnectWise.”

On why Rivelo’s grounding as a technologist was important

“You ultimately want to have for a software business a CEO who intimately knows the problems the customers are facing. And I think Manny, because he’s lived in these IT and security markets and he’s lived in them for decades, he intimately understands them, number one. And then number two, it’s not just having an understanding. It’s having somebody who has a proven track record of delivering innovation and organizing a business, and all of its employees, around accelerating value and innovation … And he checks both of those boxes really, really well.

“And the third thing is he’s a great guy. He’s a really admirable, impressive person, and I think it’s also important for the role that ConnectWise plays in the community and the IT Nation to have somebody who is a good leader and shepherd for the industry. I think he can play that role in the same way that other leaders at ConnectWise have.”

On the board’s expectations for where Rivelo focuses in his new job

“It’s picking up where Jay left off certainly and established this unbelievable foundation. You saw some of the metrics in the press release around where he’s brought the business and how he strategically picked it up. You’re going to see Manny focus on accelerating innovation on Asio, really driving things in hyperautomation and AI, and we talked a bit about cybersecurity already. And doing it all through the lens of really good transparency and relationship with the partner community.

But that’s all continuing what we’re doing … At the board level, we don’t have a clear mandate of doing something dramatically different because I think we’re on a really good track here. And obviously we’re also really excited about the two acquisitions [of Axcient and SkyKick] we just announced. Those are really, really big and really meaningful.”

On how coincidental it is that ConnectWise recently appointed a new CFO too

“I would just say it’s coincidental timing … We went through a transition at CFO and Rik [Thorbecke] has come in and been a fantastic business partner to us. And Rik came with his own very impressive background of successful exits. He’s had a bunch of successful exits. I don’t think many other CFOs have had half a dozen successful exits under their belt.”

On whether or not ConnectWise is approaching an exit

“We’re not focused on an exit anytime in the near term here. We’re focused on business building and innovation and solving problems. And I know there’s a lot of rumors that swirl in the MSP space about things, and the percentage of those rumors that end up being true is low. So there’s a lot of noise sometimes. And I think what you’re hearing from us is obviously we worked with Jay to find his successor, and Manny’s going to do a really good job over the future here. And at some point down the road, like any other investor, ConnectWise will have its event, and that could take a variety of different forms and shapes.”

On his message to ConnectWise partners anxious about the leadership change

“First, this is a transition. Jason’s remaining involved in the business and this isn’t a sudden change in that respect. So there’s a lot of continuity there, number one. Number two, I think Manny’s background speaks for itself, and his reputation. He’s an innovator, he’s very thoughtful, and he’s done great things for the customers he’s served. I think third is you’ll hear from Manny himself on that. If you’re a ConnectWise customer, you have the opportunity to engage with him directly, and we have obviously the large IT Nation Connect conference coming up in November.

“It’s right around the corner. Kind of crazy to think about November being right around the corner.”

HP seeks fulfillment through AI

In addition to the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Area is perhaps best known for hippies and high tech.

And in fact, it’s no coincidence that the birthplace of IT as we know it is also the birthplace of the Human Potential Movement. From the days of Steve Jobs, many of Silicon Valley’s most revered founders have viewed personal computers in particular as tools for both productivity and personal empowerment. Corporate profit and individual flourishing have been dual fixations of the culture they created ever since.

So it seemed fitting that one of the companies most closely associated with Silicon Valley, HP, positioned AI this week during its Imagine event in Palo Alto as a means of overcoming the all too common conflict between those twin pursuits.

“Companies are focused on driving growth,” observed President and CEO Enrique Lores (pictured) during a Tuesday keynote. “Employees are looking for both personal and professional fulfillment.”

They’re having a hard time finding it too, according to data from HP’s second annual Work Relationship Index, published during the show. Just 30% of knowledge workers globally, the study revealed, consistently experience fulfillment on the job at present, a mere two-point uptick from last year.

Which is a problem for their employers with dollars and cents implications. Happy workers are more engaged workers, notes Alex Thatcher, HP’s senior director of AI experiences, and engagement matters in a tangible way. “When people feel like they’re working with purpose and they’re engaged, you have much less turnover, you get much better productivity, and that turns into real cost savings and benefits for the company.”

Enter AI, which judging by HP’s latest data is pretty closely tied to employee engagement. Fully 73% of participants in this year’s survey said AI makes their job easier, and employees who use AI scored 11 points higher on HP’s core work relationship metric than workers who don’t.

“It’s not rocket science,” Thatcher observes. “People feel more fulfilled in their jobs when they feel that they’re good at them, and AI is helping people be better at their jobs.”

Not surprisingly, HP views AI PCs as a great way for businesses to turn fulfillment into profit. The fresh crop the company unveiled this week all come with a new feature called AI Companion that answers questions, locates information, and performs busy work on a user’s behalf. It gets progressively smarter about users over time too, and adapts to how they work. Those are attributes you don’t have to be a data scientist or LLM architect to appreciate, notes channel chief Kobi Elbaz, who uses an AI PC himself.

“I get the benefit, first of all, of having a faster response time in what I do around AI,” Elbaz says, along with better battery life than his previous laptop. “That the device will start to learn about how I use it and optimize it for my own use just by itself is another benefit.”

There are a lot of people like Elbaz out there, as Elbaz himself is quick to remind partners who view AI PCs as a niche product for power users, and a lot of them don’t much love the device they’re using now. Just 26% of respondents to HP’s survey, in fact, consider their tools a consistent workplace experience booster. “That’s the opportunity that we see ahead of us,” Lores says.

Capturing that opportunity will take some time, though. “If we look at the rest of the year, AI is maybe 10% of the mix of total PCs sold,” says Annaliese Olson, HP’s SVP and managing director for North America. “By 2027, we expect it to be almost half of the market.”

Use AI and you’ll love it. Don’t and you’ll fear it.

One more interesting insight on AI from HP's research: people tend not to stay neutral on the topic for long.

“The more they use AI, the bigger the benefits they see,” Olson (pictured) says. “On the flip side, the less that people use AI, they’re more fearful of it.”

Indeed, though 73% of all users say AI makes their job easier, as we noted a moment ago, 82% of active users do. 37% of non-AI users, meanwhile, worry that the technology could replace them.

One more good reason for MSPs to include training among their early AI services. 61% of non-AI users, in fact, say their company needs to hold proper AI training. Introduce those people to AI and you’ve set them on the road to getting more done in less time. Leave them untrained and they’ll lose sleep at night wondering if Claude and Gemini are coming for their job.

More HP services for more solutions

In my experience, at least, people may not love their PCs but they rarely hate them. Printers, as these guys can attest, are a different story. HP has AI-related plans for enhancing the print experience too.

“We are incorporating AI to create a hassle-free seamless experience that learns exactly how you like to print even if you send the wrong information to the printer,” says Lores, referring to new functionality called Print AI that began shipping this week. The feature’s first component aims to eliminate print formatting headaches like fitting a spreadsheet onto a single page (been there) or printing a website without wasting five pages on ads (done that). Future additions will enable users to get personalized support based on their preferences and past usage patterns.

Devices equipped with Print AI should pair nicely with the service HP introduced in March at its last big event that lets buyers of new printers get automated ink or toner replenishment, next business day repair, and outsourced analytics for a flat monthly fee. Additional services figured prominently in this week’s show too, including a new managed collaboration service that lets partners unfamiliar with the complexities of AV setup and support turn conference rooms into a source of recurring revenue.

“It gives them a chance to get into a very hot market with HP backing them up, so that they can engage without having to build and invest in all those skills upfront,” says John Gordon (pictured), senior vice president and president of HP’s managed solutions division, noting that it enables them to support customers with branch offices across state or international borders too.

A new advanced monitoring and management offering, a forthcoming remote remediation service for HP PCs, and a separate diagnostic service called the Workforce Experience Platform now in public beta, turn device support into a similar opportunity for HP and its partners to share monthly subscription revenue.

“We think most of our channel partners won’t invest in the global capital to have 24/7 follow-the-sun proactive monitoring,” Gordon says. Outsourcing that function to HP enables them to keep customers productive around the clock anyway and collect MRR along the way.

Why AI is useless against AI, according to ThreatLocker

ThreatLocker is significantly less upbeat about AI than HP, partly for reasons I discussed a few weeks back. Even people without advanced coding skills can use tools like ChatGPT to write malware, despite built-in safeguards designed to prevent such misuse.

And good luck getting AI-equipped endpoint security software to identify and block that AI-generated code, notes ThreatLocker CEO Danny Jenkins (pictured). Backup software that copies files into the cloud and exfiltration software that copies files into the cloud behave pretty much exactly the same way.

“You can’t detect AI with AI,” Jenkins says. “Not because it’s bad or good but because its intent can’t be determined by a computer, or even by a human.” AI is endlessly creative too, he adds, so by the time you’ve added a new auto-generated virus to a traditional endpoint protection system’s blacklist, the chatbot that wrote it has probably created ten variations with unrecognizable signatures.

That’s bad news for MSPs and their clients but good news, in a sense, for ThreatLocker, which uses allowlisting rather than blacklists to protect endpoints. An LLM can create as much ransomware as it wants, Jenkins says. “If it’s not on the list, it doesn’t run.”

From ThreatLocker’s perspective, that’s merely the latest reason to embrace its zero-trust platform, which pairs allowlisting with ringfencing functionality and then uses detection and response software to mitigate threats that make it through somehow anyway. The company, which completed a $115 million Series D funding round in April, was on something of a tear even before genAI’s arrival.

“We’re adding about 40 to 50 people a month right now,” Jenkins says.

It’s adding new solutions to its portfolio as well, including an MDR service officially announced just days before that funding round closed, and a new set of cloud security offerings that will begin with protection for Microsoft 365 and expand from there.

“We’re going to start having log ingestion from AWS, G Suite, and things like that, which will really help,” Jenkins says.

So will the 45,000 square foot office ThreatLocker recently leased, which will supplement the headquarters facility the company moved into just under two years ago and has already outgrown. “Unfortunately, we have to split the team because we can’t find a building big enough for us,” Jenkins says.

Also worth noting

• Eric Torres is the new vice president of channel and community engagement at Pax8.

• Larissa Crandall, formerly Veeam’s channel chief, is now New Relic’s channel chief instead.

• Speaking of Veeam, it’s now partnering with Palo Alto on security much as it has been with Sophos since last October.

• Speaking of Sophos, its latest research says the rate of ransomware attacks in the healthcare industry has reached a four-year high, impacting over two-thirds of care providers in the last year.

• More bad news for healthcare in security, this time from SonicWall: at least 14 million patients in the U.S. have fallen victim to malware breaches in the last year. That’s a little over one out of every 25 men, women, and children in America.

• Bitdefender’s new GravityZone Proactive Hardening and Attack Surface Reduction feature automatically applies relevant policies to users with similar usage patterns.

• GoTo Resolve now offers software asset management.

• ManageEngine’s new Spotlight feature uses AI to recommend fixes to IT inefficiencies.

• Compliancy Group’s software now supports the Texas HB 300 data privacy regulation.

• JumpCloud’s new partner program provides a single home for both MSPs and resellers.

• HPE and its Aruba Networking unit now share a single channel organization.

• Ingram Micro now distributes solutions from Barracuda Networks in Canada.

• Those of you finally ready for IoT can use Zoho’s new low-code platform to build vertical solutions.

• Cloud platform provider Vultr now supports AMD’s AI-ready Instinct MI300X accelerator and ROCm GPU programming platform.

• The new Universal DDI Product Suite from Infoblox is designed to break down silos across NetOps, CloudOps, and SecOps.